


American Dream

by loftyperch



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Crossover, Fluff, Love at First Sight, M/M, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-01
Updated: 2013-12-01
Packaged: 2018-01-03 03:17:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1065117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loftyperch/pseuds/loftyperch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was like kissing the Fourth of July.</p>
            </blockquote>





	American Dream

**Author's Note:**

> Been sitting on this for a while, just now got the guts to post it.

**1944**

Steve sat anxiously in the front room of the makeshift hospital, fifty miles from the Italian front, while Bucky got a fresh row of stitches down the hall. He hadn't even bothered to remove his starred and striped body armor ... or to eat ... or even to check in with his new CO in his haste to get Bucky patched up. He stared intently at the whitewashed wall and prayed he wouldn't nod off right then and there.

He looked up when someone entered the otherwise empty room. The boy couldn't have been more than twenty, wearing Air Force beige and a thick leather bomber jacket which hid any hint of rank. In one hand he held a clipboard, in the other a coffee mug. 

He was the most beautiful thing Steve had ever seen.

"You must be Captain Rogers," the stranger said with a ready smile, sandy hair drifting across impossibly big, blue eyes and the delicate wire rims that framed them so nicely.

Steve could only nod.

"I'm a big fan of yours." The boy blushed a faint pink and offered Steve the coffee, taking the seat beside him.

Steve took the mug.

"Are you a pilot?"

The boy chuckled deep in his throat and thought briefly about his answer.

"I'm more of a diplomat, but I do whatever my boss needs me to do."

"Little young for a diplomat aren't you?"

"I'm not nearly as young as I look, Captain."

Was it Steve's imagination, or was the boy leaning closer?

He was suddenly lightheaded, completely lost in eyes as blue as a midwestern sky, drawn like a magnet to this preternaturally beautiful stranger. The coffee mug tumbled from limp fingers to the floor and shattered, but neither man so much as blinked. Instead their eyes slid slowly closed and their lips parted.

He must be going crazy. It was the only possible explanation for this complete lack of jitters around someone he found so attractive. He didn't even need to think of something to say, so sure was he that words were not necessary with ... whoever this was. He could tell just by the intoxicating scent of the boy that he felt exactly the same unbearable urge for a moment of closeness in the midst of this unending violence.

He simply _had_ to kiss this young man. It was inevitable, inexorable ... almost predestined.

Steve could just feel the boy's mouth brush his own when the spell was broken by a shrill shout from the doorway.

"What the devil do you think you're doing?"

Both their heads snapped up to find a very perturbed RAF officer, hands on hips, heavy eyebrows drawn up in an expression of extreme displeasure.

"We've got a sit down with Russia in ten minutes, and I'll be damned if he gets to the chalkboard before we do!"

"Sorry, I'm coming."

And with that the boy was gone, hurrying after the Brit, blushing furiously. He threw Steve one last pained glance before they disappeared around the corner.

**Present Day**

Steve meandered through the crowd of government types he'd been forced to spend the night chatting up, looking smashing in his full dress uniform, fruitlessly guzzling as much champagne as he could lay his hands on.

Tony had stuck by him through the worst of the night, but had just now disappeared back to the bar, leaving Steve adrift in the sea of suits. He cast about for another Avenger, but found only plump senators, skinny lobbyists and stiff, upright military men ... and one astounding beauty in a light brown suit not unlike an old school USAF uniform.

Unable to stop himself, Steve followed the boy out onto the deserted balcony and coughed to announce his presence.

"S-sorry to bother you," he stuttered, "but you look so familiar ... I wonder if I might have served with your father in World War II. Or maybe your grandfather? You look awful young."

"I told you, Captain. I'm not as young as I look."

The sudden heat in his chest wasn't the raw sexual need he felt when Tony sauntered around the mansion in nothing but a towel, nor was it the calm, delicate longing he had felt when Peggy entered that pub in her startlingly red dress. It was the pure, surging warmth he felt at the feet of Lady Liberty or Lincoln. It was the glowing, strengthening warmth of raising a flag over a conquered hill or reading the preamble to the Constitution. 

He was right back in that Italian hospital, and this time he wasn't going to waste a second.

"How is that possible?" Steve asked the question, but he didn't care about the answer. He'd seen enough sorcery, both supernatural and scientific, to know that _anything_ was possible.

Without waiting to hear if the mysterious boy was another super soldier or an alien or some kind of modern day Dorian Gray, Steve dropped his champagne flute as carelessly as he'd dropped the coffee mug and crossed the balcony. He was met with a surprisingly strong embrace and eager, open lips. He snaked a hand up to grip dark blond hair, feather soft and cut exactly as it had been decades before.

The kiss, explosive in its intensity, was everything he'd ever wanted and more. It stirred him to his core, electricity tingling in his extremities, lights bursting behind his eyes. It was exciting, crackling, passionate.

It was like kissing the Fourth of July, like kissing freedom itself.

But eventually it had to end. They pulled away to meet each other's eyes with matched expressions of what could only be true love. Steve had never before loved anyone whose name he didn't even know ... but for some reason names didn't matter this time. There was only one thing that mattered now.

"Will I ever see you again?"

"I'm always with you, Cap. Always have been."

Leaving only a final tender kiss behind, the boy slipped away, back to the party.

Steve couldn't bear to watch him go, so instead he fixed his stare on the skyline. He wasn't sad exactly, simply certain that, whatever the boy was, he was not meant to be bound by the love of a mortal man.

When Steve turned to go back inside he found Tony leaning in the doorway, a very strange look in his eyes and a very strong drink in his hand.

"Did you see that?" he asked nervously, concerned more for the reputation of his obviously government-affiliated paramour than for his own.

"See what? You leering at Manhattan like you're Kirk and she's the Enterprise? Yeah, I've been watching you for like ten minutes now, deviously plotting how best to interrupt you."

"You didn't see him?" Maybe he really had gone crazy.

" _Him_? Him who?"

"You didn't see me kissing anyone?"

"Steve, are you okay? You came out here alone. And since when do you kiss _hims_?"

"I ... don't usually, but ..." Steve reached up to touch his lips. They still echoed with the taste of red, white and blue.

"But you were apparently daydreaming about it quite vividly. And you still haven't said, 'don't worry, Tony, I'm okay.'"

Steve almost complied, almost dropped the subject and tried to act normally.

"Do you believe in love at first sight?" he asked instead.

"Nope."

"What _do_ you believe in?" Steve meant the words to be insulting, but they came out simply curious.

"America."

"Are you just saying that because there's a hundred politicians in the other room?"

"Have you ever seen me pander? I genuinely believe in free speech, civilian control over the military, separation of powers, the maintenance of a well regulated superhero militia and Canada's lameness. I believe in this country enough to put my life and my company on the line for it. I believe that any person who has the guts to get here deserves a chance to thrive here. And I damn well believe in patent law."

"Oh."

Tony grinned and joined Steve at the railing.

"And what do _you_ believe in? Besides this love-at-first-sight nonsense and making out with invisible dudes."

This was easily the strangest conversation they'd ever had. And yet Steve remained uncommonly unflustered, still awash in the afterglow of his brief, strange encounter. He couldn't keep the smile off his face.

"America, of course."

They laughed and looked once more at the glitter of a million windows.

"Hey, Tony?"

"Mm?"

"You ever had fondue?"

**Author's Note:**

> Then Steve and Tony got married, and they lived happily ever after :D


End file.
